shivaree

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“
I came to tell you that there's a scheme to raise -- to 'shivaree' you two, tonight.

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Definitions (5)

Toggle American Heritage definitions American Heritage Dictionary (2)

  1. noun Midwestern & Western U.S. A noisy mock serenade for newlyweds. Also called regionally charivari, belling, horning, serenade.
  2. Regional Note
    Shivaree is the most common American regional form of charivari, a French word meaning "a noisy mock serenade for newlyweds” and probably deriving in turn from a Late Latin word meaning "headache.” The term, most likely borrowed from French traders and settlers along the Mississippi River, was well established in the United States by 1805; an account dating from that year describes a shivaree in New Orleans: "The house is mobbed by thousands of the people of the town, vociferating and shouting with loud acclaim.... [M]any [are] in disguises and masks; and all have some kind of discordant and noisy music, such as old kettles, and shovels, and tongs.... All civil authority and rule seems laid aside” (John F. Watson). The word shivaree is especially common along and west of the Mississippi River. Its use thus forms a dialect boundary running north-south, dividing western usage from eastern. This is unusual in that most dialect boundaries run east-west, dividing the country into northern and southern dialect regions. Some regional equivalents are belling, used in Pennsylvania, West Virginia, Ohio, Indiana, and Michigan; horning, from upstate New York, northern Pennsylvania, and western New England; and serenade, a term used chiefly in the South Atlantic states.

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Examples (32)

  • I've helped run people's underwear up flag poles, put garlic on toothbrushes, books in pillows, broken crackers in beds (does anyone else still remember a "shivaree"?), and short-sheeted beds.
  • The "boys" had planned to give Joe and his lady a "shivaree," such as even Medora had never encountered before, but Joe, who was crafty and knew his neighbors, succeeded in misleading the population of the town concerning the exact hour of his arrival with his somewhat apprehensive bride. —  Roosevelt in the Bad Lands
  • Poor old Van Zander, whom every one in Billings County had seen "stewed to the gills," pleaded with Joe not to tell Mrs. Ferris that Joe had seen him drunk It became a custom, in anticipation of a "shivaree," to send round word to Mrs. Ferris not to be afraid, the shooting was all in fun A woman would have been less than human who had failed to feel at home in the midst of such evidences of warmth and friendly consideration. —  Roosevelt in the Bad Lands
  • It represents the "Wedding of Aladdin and the Princess," a sort of sublimated "shivaree" in which oboes quawk, muted trumpets bray, pizzicato strings flutter, and mandolins (loved of Berlioz) twitter hilariously The second movement, "A Serenade in the Royal Pear Garden," begins with a luxurious tone-poem of moonlight and shadow, out of which, after a preliminary tuning of the Chinese lute (or sam-yin), wails a lyric caterwaul (alternately in 2-4 and 3-4 tempo) which the Chinese translate as a love-song. —  Contemporary American Composers Being a Study of the Music of This Country, Its Present Conditions and Its Future, with Critical Estimates and Biographies of the Principal Living Composers; and an Abundance of Portraits, Fac-simile Musical Autographs, and Compositions
  • Well, anyway, when Bill and the girl got married, the boys came to 'shivaree' them. —  The Second Chance
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/ˈʃɪvəri/
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